Tune Talk Tone Excell

All manner of fungi sprout in a detail from an educational poster that won first place in the Informational Graphics category. Depicted species include those found in cheese, beer, bread, and even hibernating bats.

"Fungi is a very complex subject,"

HIV IN 3D

The most detailed 3-D model yet of the HIV virus won first place for illustrations in the 2010 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

HORROR VIRUS

In a 3-D image, a bacteriophage aggressively attacks a bacterium "B-movie horror style," according to creator Jonathan Heras of Equinox Graphics, Ltd. The digital ambush snagged an honorable mention in the illustrations category of the 2010 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Centipede Robot

A photograph of a centipede-inspired robot won an honorable mention in the photography category. The bug-size robot's design may inspire better models for movement, according to Harvard University experts.

Rough Waters

Snagging first place for photography, this micrograph—a photograph taken through a microscope—shows the rippling surface of a single layer of molecules.

"The layer is actually comprised of two different molecules that tend to separate something like oil and water, and in this image we've captured what that separation looks like at a very early stage,"

Plant-Gene Map

What looks like a fireworks display is really a portion of AraNet, a gene map of the mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana, which earned an honorable mention in the illustrations category.

Tomato-Seed "Hair"

A microscope-enabled closeup of hairs on the seed of the common tomato won an honorable mention in the photography category.

The hairs secrete a mucus that appears as a clear membrane at the edge of the seed, according to photographer Robert Rock Belliveau, a retired pathologist. This mucus has several purposes: killing predators with a natural insecticide, preventing the seed from drying out, and anchoring the seed to the soil.